The Presidency has attacked a former presidential candidate, Kingsley Moghalu, over a statement regarding President Muhammadu Buhari’s absence at G7 2019 summit.
Moghalu, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), had said in several tweets on Thursday that President Buhari’s absence at the G7 summit was disgraceful, adding that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo would not have missed the meeting for anything.
“It’s sad that President of Africa’s supposedly largest economy wasn’t invited to the G7 summit in France but @PaulKagame of Rwanda and @CyrilRamaphosa of South Africa were,” Moghalu said.
“Our country should be at the table, not on the menu! Obasanjo, like him or not, was at the table. Now, Ghana is now eating our cake in West Africa. It’s getting more foreign investment than Nigeria. Obama visited there but not us. We should face the fact of our decline and what to do about it, instead of puerile not-picking arguments!”
In reaction, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Buhari, Garba Shehu, said the non-invitation of Buhari to witness G7 meeting this year was not a snub and that it does not diminish Nigeria’s status as Africa’s largest economy.
Shehu described Moghalu as being ignorant and playing petty politics, adding that not all countries get invited every year.
Neither does it diminish the status of Nigeria as the biggest economy on the continent. It seems no one clarified to the one-time Presidential Candidate how the G7 secretariat works.
Buhari didn’t go to Europe. Europe came to him in Japan, where the EU had him sign an MOU for 50 Million Euro in support to the country’s devastated North East.
President Buhari is in Japan for the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7).
All Comments